Homefront
by Alex Checnkov
Summary: Everything which can't fit in the main Avignon arcs can be found here and will attempt to keep pace. Current chapter, The Cafe. A brief history of what will become one of the more central settings in the Avignon arc.
1. Incentives

All the characters appearing in _Gargoyles_ and _Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles_ are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of "Alex Checnkov."

The Avignon University presented here is not meant in any way to represent the Universite D'Avignon and any similarities are coincidental.

**Author's Note**: "Homefront" is meant to compliment the other arcs of the Avignon Saga. Its purpose is to flesh out some of the behind-the-curtains workings of this alternate universe which affect the main characters but with which they have little or no direct interaction.

It's also my way of justifying not making any forward progress on the other arcs, so bear with me during such periods.

And as a word of warning about what's below: Consider it a quasi crossover of _Gargoyles_ and _The West Wing_. Yeah, it's dry reading: you've been warned. They won't all be this way, I promise.

Takes place a few days after "New Horizons: Arrival," and coming chapters, so I apologize for getting ahead of myself.

* * *

_**Homefront: Incentives**_  
Alex Checnkov

_Washington, D.C., September 24, 2018_

Just because it was election season did not mean that the business of running the country came to a standstill.

The executive cabinet was assembled at the White House to review the departments' budget necessities for the fiscal year none of them were yet certain they would see. While the bulk of the work would be done by those of the president's Office of Budget, Management and Policy ahead of the February deadline, she insisted each year that the cabinet secretaries discussed their needs as a group; despite how time consuming the process was.

Michael Glenn, a short, stocky and balding man of fifty-four and wearing a basic suit, had been the president's secretary of gargoyle affairs since her administration was elected into the White House eight years ago, and he was one of only three secretaries at the table who could make such a claim.

Given that his constituency was nocturnal, Michael was more than used to working at night. But as the day-long meeting wore on into the night, many of the other department heads and their attending senior aides began to show signs of fatigue, and the White House's interns had to create something of a bucket brigade to shuffle coffee into the Cabinet Room almost constantly.

The president was never afraid to kick someone out of her administration who could not keep pace, whether they needed unhealthy doses of caffeine or not; and many faces had come and gone over the years. But despite the pressures of her long-time political career and the pace at which she charged through it, Linda Washington, not much older than Michael, never let stress affect her presence; and while many in the room had taken off some of the layers of their working suits, she had not paid any mind to her white three-piece suit through the whole of the meeting.

"And so that's just about it, Madam President," Crofton Moore, the secretary of education, tall and in his mid-forties and the newest appointee to the cabinet, only four months on the job, said. "Assuming we can get next session's Congress to let the CBEA expire in favor of our updated legislation, we should be able to stay in the seventy billion range."

"And if they don't?" the president asked.

"We can push it down to a lower priority in the authorization bill. The only party keen on the measure is the American Liberal party, and we have a better chance of knocking out the Democrat-Republican majority than they do," he replied.

The president shook her head. Although Michael had never known her as adverse to risk, he knew she hated guesses and gut feelings. "I've been in this town for thirty years, and it will never stop to amaze me how one day's 'impossible' becomes tomorrow's reality. You draw up a contingency more solid than what your gut tells you and get back to me immediately, am I clear?"

"Yes, Madam President."

"Let's move on, then, to gargoyle affairs. What do we need to do for our friends of the night, Secretary Glenn?"

Michael, seated across from the president at the large conference table by the precedence of his station, met her gaze directly and responded without missing a beat, "The outlook right now, Madam President, is that we'll need a budget of about seven billion for fiscal Twenty Nineteen."

The president furrowed her brow and said, "If I recall correctly, in October you're getting a budget of barely six billion. That's an awfully large jump for one year."

"Yes ma'am, it is. But I'm sure you haven't forgotten that this year was a hatching year, so the population of gargoyles has jumped by twenty percent over last year's; and we couldn't take the current population into account for the coming budget. Furthermore, as secretary Bryant told us earlier, Health and Human Services has readjusted its poverty line to something considerably higher than the last time we had to peg our mandatory spending."

"How much mandatory spending are we talking about, Mister Secretary?"

"Two billion, up six-hundred million from the coming fiscal year."

The other members of the cabinet muttered disapprovingly among themselves.

"You're practically doubling this year's amount," the president said, silencing the others in the room. "Does that have to be _mandatory_?"

"Madam President, it's the law. Every two years we have to set our mandatory spending to the gargoyle population times the poverty level for two humans. Since there hasn't been a hatching in 20 years, that number has been decreasing each time we've had to do this. Now it's back up. But really, ma'am, how much the law's making me spend is the least of my concerns at the moment."

"Please go on, Mister Secretary."

"Gargoyles are waking up to the fact – and, quite frankly, I'm surprised that it's taken them this long to – that we're pretty much giving them a free salary. Even though this year a net of twelve thousand gargoyles became eligible for work, barely ten thousand signed up – one-half of the generation of forty-year-olds.

"With that, the total gargoyle employment in the eligible generations is at fifty-five percent, down from sixty-two percent from twenty years ago, down from sixty-five percent when the Gargoyle Health and Welfare Act came into effect forty years ago. They understand that they're going to get money from us no matter whether they work for it or not, so they're not going out and working for it."

"Fifty-five percent?" the president asked with some shock. "Is there any chance that number will climb in the next few years?"

"Well, the numbers are preliminary, yes, but historically gargoyles don't join the labor force as time goes on. So if the number goes up in the next two or three years, it won't be by much with the present state of things; and then it won't be but four or five years before it will start to go down again," he responded.

"'The _present_ state of things,'" she echoed. "You have a solution?"

"It's the same thing I've been harping on for the last eight years, Madam President. The system's broken, the numbers are starting to show it, so we've got to overhaul it."

"You mean cut spending," she said.

"I mean…" he began to say before being interrupted by Donald Buckworth, the president's chief of staff, seated two seats to her left, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair and the knot of his tie loose.

"You can't cut spending to gargoyles," Donald said. "People look at that like taking away food from the family pet because money's tight. You just don't do it."

"What I mean to say, Donald, is yes that we have to cut spending, but not by simply slashing it. We just need to revise the system."

"A cut's a cut, Mike."

"Give him a second, Donald," the president insisted. "Go on, Mister Secretary."

"Thank you, Madam President. Okay, let's look at this with a real-world example. You all know Katrien, right?" Most of the people in the room nodded. "My youngest daughter just bought her latest album and plays it incessantly; I've practically got it memorized."

A few people in the room smiled in amusement.

"Anyway, now that Katrien's forty years old, her production company is obligated to pay her contract wages, which on her birthday a few months ago they set as what she was making before the law took effect – thirty-two million dollars. On top of ticket sales for concerts and appearances, Katrien makes more than fifty-three million a year, making her the twelfth highest-paid singer in the world and giving her a higher salary than the next seven highest-paid gargoyles combined."

The considerably less-well-paid public officials at the table reacted to the statistic with a mixture of awe and irritation.

"We had to remove her from our salary estimates for the gargoyle population because she was skewing them too much.

"She makes enough money, in fact, that she is the sole benefactor of seven gargoyle clans – for which she gets tax write-offs; and taxes on her earnings and property are ridiculously low because of the fact that gargoyles just aren't taxed as heavily as humans. After it's all said and done, we only see about two million of Katrien's earnings come back to us in taxes, and that includes income and property taxes."

Many in the room began to talk in harsh whispers among themselves to the point that the president had to silence them by raising her hand.

"But Katrien isn't the problem," Michael continued, "just an example of it. One of the clans she provides for is, Madam President, is your hometown clan: the Rappahannock Clan of Virginia. It's an independent clan which, with this year's hatching, now boasts a population of one hundred nineteen. By law, we're obligated to pay that clan one and three-quarters million dollars, just by the nature of their population.

"On top of our money, the Rappahannock Clan will get two million dollars this year from Katrien, a donation which we don't tax. So at the end of the year, each gargoyle in that clan will have been paid almost thirty-two thousand dollars for just being alive, while the average salary for a gargoyle who works – before we give them obligatory money – and isn't receiving a benefactor's donations is thirty thousand dollars.

"And here's the real kicker. The income per _person_ in Rappahannock County is twenty-eight thousand dollars; and then those people pay taxes on that income which go back to pay the gargoyles in their county more than those people earned through hard work just for just being alive."

The room filled once more with side conversations, most of them disapproving in their tone, and Michael let the figures sink in for a moment before he continued.

"Now, these numbers are going to come out in my report on this year's hatching to Congress in December," he said. "And when this does go public, I'm going to have to disagree with you, Donald, that people aren't going to push for a reevaluation of the current program. People are already beginning to crunch the numbers, and I would be very surprised if a question or two didn't come up about this when the president goes into the debates next month.

"I don't know how the administration missed this in the last hatching, or how the public overlooked it, but I'm pretty sure they won't let it happen twice."

"So what are you suggesting, Mister Secretary?" the president asked.

"First, we have to stop pegging what we give to gargoyles on the national poverty index. What works for the Shenandoah Federation doesn't work for clans in New Amsterdam or Los Angeles; we have to localize our spending indices. Second, we have to stop mandating that every gargoyle receive an equal distribution. A hatchling does not require as many resources as an adult or elder gargoyle.

"Third, we can't let people get away with throwing money at gargoyle clans and not only not taxing those donations but letting donors write it off their taxes. Fourth, we have to stop counting gargoyles who work among the population eligible to receive handouts. We don't blindly pay people to work, we shouldn't blindly pay gargoyles to work."

"So if all that takes care of the spending problem, what about the employment problem?" the president asked.

"I do have a few of suggestions for how we can increase gargoyle employment to near Nineteen Seventy-Eight levels, if not higher."

"Let's hear them," the president insisted.

"The first is to drop the legal minimum age for a gargoyle to work from forty to thirty-five, maybe even thirty, to get future generations working sooner. At those ages gargoyles are wanting to prove that they are capable members of their clans and greater communities, particularly in rural clans where unemployment is the highest.

"Second, gargoyles now are being paid _on average_ twenty percent less than their human counterparts. Gargoyles aren't going to work if they think we won't treat them as equals."

Michael hesitated before moving on to his next suggestion, knowing its unpopularity well in advance. As his pause wore on, the president raised an eyebrow and asked with the perceptiveness he had come to know of her, "What are you holding back?"

"Two economic sectors saw increased gargoyle employment this year," he began. "Construction and law enforcement, particularly the latter since Congress relaxed rules on allowing gargoyles to serve as police officers; right now one in twenty-five gargoyles in the country is involved in law enforcement."

He looked around the room as he continued, "We all know gargoyles believe that it is their _duty_ to protect; however they interpret that duty, it's undeniably part of their nature."

Michael looked to the secretary of defense, Maurice Sheridan, fit and only a few years younger than Michael, three seats on the president's right, "I think we can foster that instinct to increase employment and mitigate the consequences of our entitlement program if we open up an occupation currently forbidden to them."

Maurice looked as though he had been punched in the stomach by what had been suggested by implication. "No!" he said emphatically after taking a moment to recover himself. His exclamation caused the other secretaries and their aides to stir as they caught on to Michael's implicit suggestion.

"No, absolutely not," Maurice said – almost shouted – above the flurry of side conversations. He leaned forward and looked at the president, "Madam President, if you put gargoyles in uniform, forget the sting in the polls you _might_ get because gargoyles are getting larger handouts than people are getting in earned wages, you might well be disowned by the party, I dare say by the American _people_."

"Why?" Michael shot back as the room began to quiet down to hear the exchange. "They're police officers and doctors, Mister Secretary. We already put our lives in their hands. They build our homes and heavy machinery, and one of them, if you missed it, is making _fifty-three million dollars_ per year as an entertainer. But what they really _want_ to do we aren't letting them, and we can let them do it to our benefit."

"So what happens when they want citizenship and voting rights?" Maurice asked in response. "Do we just hand them over? I bet that would make the Liberal Party real happy to hear at the debates."

"I haven't said anything about citizenship," Michael replied, "and this is not at all inconsistent with either the Party's or the president's platform. President Washington has always said that the best way to promote the health and welfare of our country's gargoyles – which is in the Constitution if you forgot, Maurice – is to promote cooperation. Giving them handouts does nothing for them that they can't do themselves and is probably about to fall out of favor with the American people."

The president held up a hand, "Before you go telling me what my position on this is, Mister Secretary, let me get a little more informed on the matter." She leaned forward and looked down to the right end of the room at the assembled military leaders behind her national security advisor, all of whom were engaged in their own side conversation. "General Mansfield, what's your take on the secretary's suggestion?"

The chairman of the joint chiefs, immaculately groomed in his Marine Corps uniform, one of the oldest and still among the most physically fit people in the room, leaned forward in his chair away from the conversation and said, "Madam President, as you may be aware, I was one of the first members of the force recon special operations unit. And as you also may know, the formation of that unit began a tradition of inviting gargoyles to take part in special operations training.

"My nighttime instructor during my training was a gargoyle, and today many young men and women in special operations training of all branches are being taught key combat skills by gargoyles. Now, we technically consider those gargoyles civilians, and it's not uncommon to bring in civilian experts as part of training; but gargoyles are natural warriors and the experience our soldiers get by their training is unmatched by human instructors. Most nations with gargoyle populations utilize their skills in a similar manner."

"But no nation on this earth puts gargoyles in uniform and send them out to the frontlines," the secretary of defense said.

"No, Mister Secretary, they don't. But some countries _do_ use gargoyles in supporting roles. France, England and Germany are beginning to incorporate gargoyles into their military structure, and China and Russia have used them for years. I don't think any nation, including this one, is ready to utilize gargoyles in a _combat_ role, but I think we could tolerate them in a support capacity."

"And what is the extent of 'support?' I have a feeling that if gargoyles signed up for the army then found themselves shaving potato skins in mess tents, we wouldn't see many come back," the president said.

The general shook his head, "I'm not here as a policy man, Madam President, just an advisor; and my advice is that we might be able incorporate gargoyles into our armed forces in a broader role than we do now."

Toby Woodrow, the national security advisor, considerably older than the president and very formally dressed, said, "Like the general, I can't see any reason why we couldn't at least consider the matter."

The president nodded and then looked to her chief of staff. "What do you think, Donald?"

"Not in an election year, certainly not this close to the debates," he replied. "If you go forward with Secretary Glenn's other suggestions in the budget proposal for next year, we might be able to bring it up then with less fallout; but if you announce it now, the Independence Party and Liberals will never let up. You might not even make it to the run-off, Madam President."

"And keep in mind," Andrew Ellsworth, the president's director of budget, policy and management, seated on her immediate left, said, "gargoyles aren't voting, Madam President, the American people are. Even if you do introduce such a proposal at the start of your third term, it might well cost you the party's nomination for a fourth if you try to seek it."

"Be that as it may," the president said, "I'm quite close to the gargoyles of my hometown, as I know most Americans who live near gargoyles are to their clans. I take the 'health and welfare' clause of our constitution very seriously for that reason, and so does the Party." She looked back at Michael and asked, "How much do you expect allowing gargoyles to serve in our armed forces would improve their employment numbers?"

The secretary of defense scoffed at the question, earning him a sharp glare from the president, and Michael responded, "If all my other recommendations are put into place, I think we could see employment levels as high as seventy-five percent. Attitude polls suggest that gargoyles of eligible generations would be very receptive to the opportunity."

Andrew added, "Attitude polls also suggest that gargoyles would vote this year, as every year, American Liberal five to one over Conservatives if they could. Madam President, I have to join Secretary Sheridan as a voice of dissent on considering this course of action as catering not merely to the wrong constituency but a _non_-constituency."

The president tapped her pen on the stack of budget information in front of her and said after a moment's pause, "Okay, we're going to shelve discussion on this until after the elections. In the meantime, I want the departments of defense and gargoyles affairs to explore – _together_ – the possibility of integrating gargoyles into our armed services and get back to me at the start of next year's term. Ladies and gentlemen, I expect to win in November, and I intend to find a solution to the problems Secretary Glenn has raised tonight. Am I clear?"

All in the room answered in the affirmative.

"Good. In the meantime, let's move on to your discretionary spending needs, Mister Secretary, and get on with the business at hand."


	2. The Cafe

All the characters appearing in _Gargoyles_ and _Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles_ are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of "Alex Checnkov."

The Avignon University presented here is not meant in any way to represent the Universite D'Avignon and any similarities are coincidental. The Flying Café is a work of fiction, and any similarities to any establishment by the same name are purely coincidental.

**Author's Note**: "Homefront" is meant to compliment the other arcs of the Avignon Saga. Its purpose is to flesh out some of the behind-the-curtains workings of this alternate universe which affect the main characters but with which they have little or no direct interaction.

It's also my way of justifying not making any forward progress on the other arcs, so bear with me during such periods.

* * *

**_Homefront: The Café_**  
Alex Checnkov

The success of the Flying Café, situated just outside the southern limit of Winchester, Virginia, on U.S. Route 11, as one of the nation's longest-running dining establishments is due in no small part to luck.

In 1938, Winchester was a town of barely twelve-thousand people, tucked behind the eastern Blue Ridge Mountains. It was best known in the region as the place where the transcontinental U.S. Route 50, connecting Ocean City, Maryland, to San Francisco, crosses Route 11, which connects New Orleans to the New York-Canadian border near Lake Champlain, then continues on as Provincial Route 223 to Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, at the union of the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers.

A newcomer to the Winchester area, David Ruby, opened the Flying Café in the summer of that year, shortly after the United States Army finished construction on the Winchester Training Aerodrome for the budding air corps. It was a simple establishment, no more than two-thousand square feet, with the ability to hold one-hundred hungry customers. Its aluminum exterior mimicked the aircraft buzzing around overhead, while large windows in all places but the kitchen and storage areas allowed patrons to soak in the view of the Appalachians. The Flying Café was also the first building in Winchester to display the still-new neon lights, its sign burning brightly over the front door. Young pilots poured into the café after their training sessions or for a quick meal before they hopped the train for weekend leave in Washington, D.C.

1938 was also the year where the gargoyle population of the Shenandoah Valley became such that gargoyles migrated to create four new clans within twenty miles of Winchester, outposts for adventurous gargoyles who would follow what remained of eastward hunting trails beyond the Appalachians and suitable gliding winds.

After the Second Great European War ended, the Army saw little use for the training field as the nation demilitarized, and the base locked its gates on December 31, 1947. The town of Winchester suffered. Businesses which had prospered under the influx of service personnel suddenly had many-thousands fewer customers. The subsequent economic bust sent many more families to cities like Roanoke and Washington, compounding the economic problem for those people who chose to stay in the city.

But through the changing times, the Flying Café survived – albeit with shrinking profit margins. Where young airmen and their families once dined, vacationers came as they enjoyed the postwar boom. It was not uncommon for a family from New York or Pennsylvania to stop by in June on their way south and return in early July on their way home, such was the reputation and quality of the small café.

The Café's first real struggle for its survival came more than a decade after the base closed, and the country embarked on the multibillion dollar interstate project. Interstate 81 opened near Winchester in November, 1965, and over time long-distance traffic moved from U.S. 11 to the interstate.

By the time Interstate 81 was considered complete in Virginia in 1975, fifteen-thousand vehicles were passing by Winchester on the interstate. The motels which once served weary travelers began to close as chain hotels opened close to interstate exits, and it did not seem long before the Flying Café would be permanently grounded.

One February night in 1976, after the café had closed, the members of the family which ran the diner sat at a tables, financial documents dating back to the 1940s covering the surface, and debated what they should do about their business' rapidly falling profits.

"Once Karen has our baby," Larry Ellis, a man in his mid-twenties and the Flying Café's manager, said, "we aren't gonna be able to support him with these kinds of dollars."

"And where'd you go if we shut it down? Where'd any of us go?" his younger brother, Stephen, the diner's primary cook, asked.

"Jim offered me that newspaper job in town, and you could always follow Robert to Roanoke for all that construction they've got going on down there."

"You hush," Eleanor Ruby Ellis, a short woman of fifty-four years and the café's head waitress, said to her son. "Your granddaddy would be ashamed to hear you talk about closing down his business, rest his bones."

"He'd also be ashamed if we all fell into poverty because we couldn't keep it open right."

"People are always gonna be hungry, and we can bring those folks here if we just think of a way. We've done it before."

"We need maybe another seven-hundred people per month at minimum to turn a good profit. That's almost five percent of all of Winchester."

"No, we just need their money."

"Okay, fine, we need another two-thousand dollars per month at _minimum_ to turn a good profit. Anybody got any ideas?"

"Well, you've gotta spend money to make money," Stephen said. "Maybe we should take out a few more radio ads – television, even – and maybe try and get in some of those traveling guides people use. Or get a sign up by the interstate."

"We don't have enough money for any of those things," Larry said.

The group sat around for a few moments in thoughtful silence before Harold Ellis, Eleanor's husband and father of Larry and Stephen, the only member of the family who did not have a hand in the café's operations, said, "How much you reckon a gargoyle can eat?"

"Say again, Pop?" Larry asked.

"Gargoyles. I figure one of them can eat about as much as two or three folks; and so long as their money's good, why not get some of it? There are a bit over fifteen-hundred of them in this and the neighboring counties, that's maybe four-thousand people as far as food's concerned."

"_Pop_, we're trying to get people to come here. If word gets out that we're serving gargoyles, nobody'll come here. Besides, we're not open late enough to serve gargoyles, if we were going to – which we're not."

"Back when the flyboys were coming here, this diner was open twenty-four hours a day all week except for the Lord's day," Eleanor said. "We could go back to those hours."

"Which means we'd need to hire another shift for the late night and early morning and buy more supplies, which is more money _lost_. And, again, there is no way we can serve gargoyles and stay open. You show me one business around here that serves humans _and_ gargoyles and turns a profit. We'd be out of business in a year."

In March of that year, Larry took the job at _The Winchester Local_ he had been offered when his parents and younger brother contacted gargoyle clans in the area to announce that they would begin serving gargoyles. Harold took over as manager.

It was not until April, however, that the Flying Café got its first winged customers. A small hunting band of five gargoyles showed up in the middle of the third shift after a successful hunt. Bad weather was forcing them to travel on foot on their way home about thirty miles southwest of Winchester, and they had worked up a large appetite as they made the trek.

Three male and two female gargoyles sat down at the main counter while the few humans who were dining in those late night hours quietly paid their bills and left, leaving the gargoyles alone.

As Eleanor prepared to take the gargoyles' orders, she smelled something out of place in the otherwise clean diner. She leaned over the counter and saw that the gargoyles had brought in the sacks which contained the remains of their kill. Eleanor looked at the leading male square in the eye and said, "You can't leave that on the floor. You're gonna have to take it outside."

The male, several feet taller than Eleanor and packing more than her weight in muscle, looked out the window at the rain coming down and then back at her. "The meat will rot out there."

"It'll rot on that floor, too, and bring in the health inspector. You give it to me and I'll stick it back in our refrigerator for you until you leave."

"This meat is for my clan. It does not leave my sight."

Eleanor's will power easily matched the gargoyle's muscle power. "Then you don't eat," she said without hesitation. "We'll take care of it for you, but it isn't gonna stay on my floor."

The two stared at each other in silence for what could have been a few seconds but what felt like minutes. Eventually the gargoyle turned to his friends, gave them an order in Appalachian Common, then looked back to Eleanor and said, "Show my friends where your refrigerator is."

David had framed the first customer receipt from 1938 – an order of chicken and waffles with a bottle of soda, sold for seventy-five cents. And so Harold framed the receipt from the first gargoyles to eat at the diner – two "Egg"straordinary breakfasts with hash browns, a total of six eggs cooked over-easy, three orders of steak and eggs, five extra sides of sausage, five glasses of water with two free refills each, three sodas and a second "Egg"straordinary breakfast with hash browns, another three over easy eggs, all sold for nineteen dollars and thirty-eight cents.

Unaware of the custom, the gargoyles failed to leave a tip. One gargoyle, however, spotted the comment cards on the countertop and left a note. Written in Appalachian Common, the note said, "It is good food, but the portions are too small."

When word first got out that the café had catered to gargoyles, there was a slight drop in the number of human customers. However, as increasing numbers of gargoyles began to appear in the late night and early morning hours, more humans did as well. Since gargoyles live while humans sleep, few in the Winchester community got the opportunity to interact with gargoyles, but now they had a reason to.

Rather than serve as a deterrent, the presence of gargoyles became a point of fascination which attracted customers to the diner.

In winter that year, the lifestyle editor of _The Winchester Local_ ran a story about the Flying Café which began, "All it takes to bring gargoyles off the mountains is food, and Winchester's own Flying Café is bringing down whole clans at a time."

A copy of the article made its way to the governor's office in Richmond, and not long after the Virginia Department of Health and the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia sent a letter to the Flying Café declaring that its license to serve patrons had been suspended while the Commonwealth investigated "recent reports that your establishment has repeatedly violated numerous health and human preservation laws."

The laws which the Commonwealth said the Flying Café had been in violation of were a combination of laws penned back in the colonial period when it was believed that gargoyles could be carriers of disease; all together they barred gargoyles and humans from living together, working in close proximity, and sharing food sources. They had rarely been enforced not because there was a lack of will, but rather because there was a lack of need; gargoyles stayed with their clans, humans in their towns.

Rather than close its doors voluntarily, the Flying Café sued the Commonwealth, and in so doing it drew national attention – and desperately needed legal support. The Commonwealth forced the diner's doors shut at the beginning of 1977.

Under intense political and media pressure, the case rocketed through the legal system, and in March 1977 the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the injunction against the Flying Café, citing of all things the newly-signed United States Endangered Species Act which prohibited humans from affecting the environments of protected species, gargoyles included.

The Flying Café's legal team appealed the ruling to the United States Supreme Court, and in the meantime the Congress began work on what would become the Gargoyle Health and Welfare Act of 1977, taken after the language in Article Five of the Constitution which says simply, "The Gargoyle population, long-surviving on this Continent, shall have their Health and Welfare preserved and protected, to that extent which does not infringe on the Rights and Laws of Man enumerated herein."

The Act became law on November 22, 1977, and effective January 1, 1978. Among other things, the federal law superseded state laws which prohibited gargoyles from sharing work or public establishments with humans; and it while it would remain up to private establishments as to whether or not they would cater to gargoyles, the states could not prohibit them from doing so.

The Gargoyle Health and Welfare Act came under a flurry of constitutional challenges, but before the Supreme Court would hear them, it heard the case of Flying Café vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia in December 1978. In April 1979, it issued its ruling which struck down the injunction against the Flying Café and the laws which the Commonwealth had used to file it. One year later it would uphold the constitutionality of the Gargoyle Health and Welfare Act, and use Flying Café as one of its precedents for doing so.

After the Supreme Court's ruling, the Flying Café sued the Commonwealth again for money lost while it was closed. Rather than lose in a string of lower court cases, the Commonwealth settled with the diner for three hundred-thousand dollars.

The diner's last appearance in national headlines came in 1980, as the weak alliance of lower Appalachian gargoyle clans began to unravel. As various factions began to form in the alliance, many predicted that the region would plunge into civil war. Instead, leaders of the emerging factions met one April night in the Flying Café, and there they began a week of negotiations which eased tensions and resulted in the peaceful creation of the present four gargoyle nations of the Shenandoah Valley and Southern Appalachian regions.

Stephen left the family business soon after the Appalachian Accords to follow his girlfriend and future wife to Memphis, where she would serve as an executive for a fast-growing advertisement agency started by her college roommate. Two years later, Harold died from a heart attack, and Eleanor took over as manager.

In 1983, as Winchester expanded southward, the Commonwealth approved a plan to add an interstate exit just half a mile from the Flying Café; and when the exit was completed in the spring of 1985, customers began to frequent the diner in unprecedented numbers, due in some measure to their brand-new interstate billboard, designed by Stephen's wife as per Eleanor's request.

Eleanor left the Flying Café in 1992 to tend to her health, but not before she sold the diner to a restaurant chain – on the condition that they maintained the name and design of the diner, given its historical significance. After some negotiation, the chain agreed, and the new management took over in the early months of 1993. Eleanor died in 1995.

The Ruby family line, however, returned to the Flying Café in the summer of 2017 when sixteen-year-old Kara Ellis, Larry's granddaughter, took a job as a waitress to begin saving up for her own car.

Kara asked for the third shift, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., in order to interact with the diner's now-regular gargoyle customers.


End file.
